


metamorphosis

by saunatonttu



Category: One Piece
Genre: Law's unfortunate love affair with the Heart Seat continues, M/M, Manipulation, Non-Explicit Torture, Starvation, age gap, just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:58:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had failed, and the consequences for that failure were as hard to face as the Heart Seat was to sit on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	metamorphosis

_**no hope was left in sight.** _

_**only traces of heart-wrenching despair.** _

_**a soul drenched in the ink of revenge.** _

 

If he had any preferences when it came to death, one of them was for him to go down hard and with a bang. For Cora-san, he had prepared to pay that price. For Cora-san's wish, this life of his hadn't seemed like a big sacrifice; although, if Law had to be quite honest with himself, there was that pitch-black part of him that sought out revenge for himself, regardless of what Cora-san had actually wished for him.

Revenge, revenge - the word itself was all-consuming, a flicker in the dark that had grown into a full-blown fire under the carefully nursed anger. It had given him a reason for living for the past thirteen years, more or less, but…

It had failed.

 _He_  had failed: Doflamingo was alive, in good strength, and SMILE factory producing as much Devil Fruits as ever. (Strawhats were dead, and that weighed Law down more than he had imagined it would.)

There were few things that could drag Law's mood down quicker than that, though Doflamingo seemed to have ideas on how to run him down and wear him out even more. Death, as much as Doflamingo seemed to contemplate it when he looked at Law, wasn't going to sink its bony claws into Law's flesh just yet.

Doflamingo was going to prolong this  _game_ , like the fucking puppeteer the man was.

* * *

 

Chained to the Heart Seat wasn't the worst thing Doflamingo could have done to him, Law acknowledged this as a fact, but it sure as hell served as a reminder of what could have been in another time. It served to get a rise out of Law, and fuck if it didn't work,  _fuck_  if it didn't make his gut coil and teeth grit together in a seething burst of emotion.

The seat had been empty for over a decade, collecting dust in anticipation for its intended ruler.

"It does suit you, you know," Doflamingo commented flippantly, a grin stretched across his face while Law forcefully kept himself from reacting to the smugness in Doflamingo's voice. The tone reeked of victory, of self-satisfaction for having bested Law, though it hadn't taken much, now had it?

"That seat, I mean," Doflamingo continued, and Law wished there was something other to act as a stimulus for his ears besides the crooning voice of the bastard. "You did grow up well to fit that chair. Though you should not slump. Must be bad for your back."

As if Doflamingo hadn't put Law into this posture in the first place; as if Law had any strength to pull himself to sit straight!

"Don't look at me like that now," Doflamingo laughed, the sound cruel and abrasive. "It is, after all, your own fault things had to reach this point. I  _would_  have been glad to resolve our differences through a couple rounds of drinks, as I said before…"

"Fuck you," Law spat.

"Aren't you a pleasant conversationalist?" Doflamingo laughed, his shoulders shaking from the force of it, and Law snapped his jaw shut, facial muscles tight and tense. "You are attractive enough, don't worry." Doflamingo waddled over to Law, steps echoing in the ominously empty throne room. Large fingers found Law's jaw, forcing his head to tilt up so that their gazes would meet.

"As much as you have pissed me off, I'm a forgiving man. Repent."

Law would have spat in Doflamingo's face had he been hydrated enough. As it was, he only managed a half-hearted cluck of his tongue. Doflamingo hummed, undeterred by Law's attitude. "As I thought, you need to go through thorough re-education… a pity that some lessons must be learnt through such drastic methods."

Law bit on his lower lips hard enough to draw blood as Doflamingo's cackled echoed in the room and his mind.

This was despair he hadn't felt since childhood.

* * *

 

The seat was uncomfortable, clearly not made for sitting - or maybe that was just Law's wounds speaking, as he wasn't allowed the privilege of anaesthesia of any kind. The poorly wrapped bandages had been soaked by blood, which had dried eventually during the long hours of sitting and waiting and suffering in silence through the night.

Doflamingo's touch lingered like a burn mark etched into his skin, violating and shaking Law even long after the initial event. The faked gentleness was the reason, the casual fondness that Doflamingo had faked. Even if Law denied it, affection was something the best-guarded part of him craved and was starved for.

Doflamingo knew how to play that part like an instrument of his own doing.

Law thought back to Cora-san.

_I'm sorry… I'm sorry._

In the dead of the night, shackled to the seat of his dead Corazon, Law wept.

* * *

 

The hunger pangs started to hit him around the noon. It was raining outside: Dressrosa wept for its inhabitants since no one else did. Law heard the drizzling sounds through the haze of exhaustion that kept him between conscious and unconscious worlds. Drip, drip, drip. Like his tears last night.

He was slapped awake, though he had never truly fallen asleep, as his ever dark eyebags revealed.

He would recognize Baby 5's slap anywhere. "Law, you're not sleeping through this, you fool," she hissed, and he thought that if he had been a better person, certainly he would have pitied her as she had grown up with a family like Doflamingo's.

Now, he burned in his resentment - but even that feeling was starting to exhaust its flames until there would be none left.

Law tilted his head, inhaling sharply as the sting of her touch spread over his face. Doflamingo's laugh rang through the room. "Now, now, there's no need to be so  _vulgar_ , Baby 5."

"Sorry," she muttered, and he could smell the scent of the cigarette between her lips. Even Smoker would have been a preferred company. Law closed his eyes, dry throat constricting painfully.

The rest of the family were loud, gleeful in their celebration of their victory over Law's uprising.  _Mutiny_ , they called it.  _Revenge,_ Law thought of it.

Dellinger still called him Law- _nii,_  an irritation that bothered Law to the point of unreasonable anger. Baby 5 and Buffalo, well. They treated him like he was a misbehaving little brother, and that was what made the charade all the more tortuous. The top executives, on the other hand, had the sense to treat him for what he was - a play doll of their master, a fool on their death row.

Law didn't know how to feel when he saw Diamante handle Kikoku, the hands of the swordsman curious and firm and Law wanted them off of his blade. But the strength to fight off the events unfolding had left him, the wounds on him too severe and the shackles of seastone too tight.

It was like watching his life after Doflamingo fall apart… at his hands.

He always comes back to Doflamingo, in one way or another.

Law closed his eyes, but there was no hope for death at this time.

* * *

 

"You must be thirsty."

"Not particularly." Law threw a glance across the room, anywhere but Doflamingo despite knowing how vulnerable his stubbornness made him appear. There was very little point in anything, except maybe giving Doflamingo grief for all its worth.

Even that didn't seem like worth the effort, anymore.

The adrenaline the thought of revenge had fueled him with the past decade or so had finally ran out.

"Your voice betrays you," Doflamingo mused as he made Law drink from the wine glass. It wasn't water, of course. Wine burnt its way through Law's throat as he swallowed, nose wrinkling in distaste. "Oh, don't look at me like that now, Law. It's one of my better wines, produced right here in my homeland."

"You can shove it up your asshole."

"You have taken a fancy to that word," Doflamingo squinted at him behind his shades, and Law's stomach rolled with nausea. "It's like watching a teenager going through puberty. Where are the dicks drawn with crayons?"

Law chortled, the sound dry and lifeless. "Between your legs, I assume."

He wasn't surprised when he felt Doflamingo's strings against his throat, sharp and drawing blood. "You test me, brat."

"Go ahead." It wasn't like he had any real reason to go on now that Doflamingo had him in his clutches. Some of that must have shown in his eyes, because Doflamingo withdrew a moment later, though not without running his fingers down Law's blood-stained cheek.

He couldn't remember when he had last taken a shower.

"The seat could still be yours, if you said two little words… or three, depending on how you feel about contractions."

 _I'd rather rot in hell for all eternity,_ Law thought as Doflamingo caressed his bloody face, movements deliberate and entirely aware of the disgust shifting and moving about in Law.

 _Though… it looks like I'm already there,_  Law figured, his stomach churning from either hunger or sheer disgust.

"There are many ways to break a person; not all of them include bloodshed, either," Doflamingo continued, voice detached and distant or perhaps that was just Law's consciousness withdrawing from an unbearable reality.

There was nowhere to run to, though.

* * *

 

Doflamingo played the part of a charming benefactor like it was his second nature. Law saw the charade for what it was - a play, a slow dance with Law's remaining clarity, a show like the ones at the Colosseum. Chained to the worst chair in the history of chairs, he couldn't put a stop to it.

"You look exhausted," Doflamingo made an observation one day as he lazily pried Law's mouth open with a cocktail stick. "And your breath stinks," Doflamingo tutted when Law gave no reply.

"Casualty of war," Law muttered, voice as drowsy and shaky as he felt his entirety to be. "Alas, dental hygiene falls first. "

"Your tongue has yet to fail you," Doflamingo clucked his tongue in disapproval. "I would cut if off, but here I am, charmed by your vulgar self."

"What a tragically pathetic lie," Law coughed, the sound reverberating through him and his bones. His lips tasted like bile, a lot like the sourness of lost determination. A lot like dying breaths.

Unfortunately, he would not stop breathing, not yet.

Not before Doflamingo saw it fit to end the breaths for him.

* * *

 

The hunger was one thing, but Law knew the worse was yet to come. Diarrhea, maybe even delusions, pain. Smell of his own dirty clothes and the urine. It was a wonder Doflamingo allowed him to rot away in the throne room, since Law ruined the gorgeousness of it.

But it was just another game, another set before the ball would hit the floor and end the match.

The stiffness in Law's limbs spoke volumes of how many days had passed. His ass hurt. His back muscles were sore. Law couldn't get himself comfortable, though he hardly bothered to try as the shackles on his wrists and ankles restricted him. Doflamingo's laughter never ceased, neither in real life nor inside Law's head.

_Fu fu fu…_

It was hard to fight, when there was an obstacle too tall to overcome. And Law gave in, little by little. It wasn't hope that he had clung to in the beginning. Hope was a fragile, fleeting thing - like Cora-san, it died when Doflamingo riddled it with bullets (his words and the actual ones).

Doflamingo's fingers pulled at his hair, coaxing Law's eyes to flutter open. The touch was gentle, mocking everything of Corazon's legacy. Law's scalp burned under the touch, hotter than the cooled down rage in the pit of his stomach.

"You made a beautiful tragedy of your life, when it could have been something more," Doflamingo murmured, "though, admittedly, there is hardly anything more entertaining than a good old tragedy in this world."

Law said nothing in return. The wounds of the past weren't the only ones bleeding; there was too much damage to pinpoint each trauma precisely. But Doflamingo's hand did a good job in stirring the mixture of exhaustion, apathy, and death wishes, an emotion flaring up every now and then like a flame dying to come back to life.

"Today, my dear-" Doflamingo's smile was audible, sickening and pretending sweetness and rubbing it in Law's stinging scars. "You are taking a bath. There's only so much crime against hygiene that I can stand."

Law's eyes narrowed into a glare.

"Breathtaking," Doflamingo sing-songed, like the church bells on the morning of a funeral.

* * *

 

The bath was pleasant to his sore muscles, but he couldn't enjoy it that much as he had to share the luxurious bathtub with Doflamingo, who played him like a real life puppet with his strings. Law moved to the rhythm of his fingertips. That was probably the only way he could even move at this point. His legs would not carry him, his hands shook terribly when he attempted to use them.

How much time had passed? Law didn't know. He remembered the passing snacks Baby 5 fed him (pieces of bread, followed by gulps of wine), and the urine that dampened his pants. But time? Time was lost on him.

Law shuddered as Doflamingo's fingers met his bath-wrinkled skin. Any touch was a bad touch. Any touch was-

"You really ought to stop, you know," Doflamingo laughed. Malicious. Cold. Emotions that Law's complicated brain could name Before, but not now. "You have the power to end this."

 _You were always my favorite,_  Doflamingo's words from an immeasurable time ago flitted across Law's mind, drawing wounds open in their wake.

"So do you," Law said, the words tasting similar to the static inside his head and behind his eyes. "You took away Kikoku. I can hardly commit suicide." To speak was to struggle, and Law messed up words along the way, some hardly audible over the creakiness of his voice.

"Silly boy," Doflamingo huffed, a hand caressing the pulse point on Law's neck. A heart was still beating, though irregular and slow. "That was not what I meant at all."

 _Kill me,_ Law thought distantly as Doflamingo cupped his face.  _Kill me._

It was an empty thought that fell into the forgetful whiteness in his head as Doflamingo kissed him. It would have been a violation most demeaning before, but Law's failing senses made it appear pleasant. Something to look forward to again. Something that was not in the realm of  _nothing_  like most of everything.

It was with the strength of his own that he gripped the side of Doflamingo's arm and leaned weakly into the touch, not feeling the trails of salty tears that scorched their way down his skin.

Doflamingo's shit-eating smirk went unnoticed.

Not that it mattered even if Law were to see it.

* * *

 

"Isn't he just the  _prettiest_?" Doflamingo cooed as he settled Law on the seat, handling him like a ragdoll. "He grew up so fine. Pity his mentality went down the drain."

"Well, not everyone has what it takes to be you, Young Master," Diamante commented flippantly, chuckling as Law's head tilted to a side. Once golden eyes looked as dead as the moon in comparison to the sun it reflected.

"You think he'll give in?" Doflamingo wondered, lips forming a sickening, toothy smirk that required no answer. He knew the answer.

"He already has," Trébol laughed. "Look at him. It's easy to tell, behehehe."

"True that…. You would like the sight, wouldn't you, Vergo?" Doflamingo muttered, to himself and to his dead companion. Life for life. Like Law had taken Vergo's, Doflamingo would take his.

Just… in a different fashion.

* * *

 

"I'm sorry…"

"I'm sorry…"

"I'm sorry…"

"Fufufu, I knew you would figure out the right words. You were always smart."

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was. different.


End file.
